The Supreme Court ruled unanimously Tuesday that the federal government was wrong to stop a small religious sect in New Mexico from importing hosaca tea from Brazil, that federal drug enforcement agents should not have confiscated the tea, and that a “zero tolerance approach” to drugs is going too far.

The tea contains an otherwise illegal drug known as DMT, or dimethyltryptamine, which O Centro Espirita Beneficiente Uniao do Vegetal uses in its religious rites.

Unfortunately, the case has been sent back down to the appellate courts, where the feds will get another chance to screw things up some more.

Roberts said that the Bush administration had not met its burden under a federal religious freedom law to show that it could ban “the sect’s sincere religious practice.”

The chief justice had also been skeptical of the government’s position in the case last fall, suggesting that the administration was demanding too much, a “zero tolerance approach.”

The Bush administration had argued that the drug in the tea not only violates a federal narcotics law, but a treaty in which the United States promised to block the importation of drugs including dimethyltryptamine, also known as DMT.

“The government did not even submit evidence addressing the international consequences of granting an exemption for the (church),” Roberts wrote. — Associated Press

Small victory indeed, but it does indicate that the court is beginning to understand that the War on Drugs is ridiculous, stupid, bad for America, not to mention unconstitutional.